"Peace Be With You"

07 Aug 2010

Kandahar, Afghanistan

That key moment in the Catholic mass when the priest passes on Jesus' blessing has always been my favorite.  One shakes the hand of his or her neighbor, wishing them peace.  As a child it was a break from the monotony of the vigils, the prayers, and the Latin, none of which I understood.  As an adult I appreciate the sentiment, and I do understand.

"Peace be with you," urged our Canadian priest.  As the tail of a giant C-17 aircraft rolled from left to right in the windows behind him I thought to myself, This is the strangest place I have ever celebrated mass.

Through those windows, about 100 yards beyond, was the place where I examined the mangled bodies of the six suicide bombers a few days before.  A couple of dozen yards beyond that lies the runway where fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles, and Afghan Ariana airways jets take off.

While on call during the 30 hours preceding the mass, I had had in succession three very tragic admissions.  The first was a 24 year old woman who was 12 weeks pregnant.  She had been riding on a motorcycle with her husband and young child, shot from behind.  She was now paralyzed from the waist down, a bullet disrupting her spinal cord.  Her husband had survived but her young child was dead.  The child she carried had now survived the gunshot, the crash from the bike, and now two surgeries.  Peace be with you, baby.  Maybe God has a plan for you.

Early this morning in the trauma bay, not 50 yards from our makeshift chapel, a twelve year old child was brought in from the field, ashen grey.  An ultrasound probe placed on his chest confirmed what we already knew - he was dead on arrival.  Another IED blast victim, may he rest in peace.

Two hours before mass, just down the hall from where mass was being celebrated we admitted a young man from the OR who was dying in front of us.  He had been shot in the abdomen and had been down for awhile.  He was taken directly to the OR where he received a emergency thoracotomy, an aortic clamping, and a laparotomy which showed over 1.5 liters of blood.  Despite heroic efforts by the surgeons, the bleeding could not be stopped.  He was delivered to the ICU on three different vasopressors designed to maintain blood pressure, fluid and blood products running quickly into his veins.  His blood pressure was in the 50s despite all this.  More epinephrine boluses were given but it was clear that our efforts were futile, as blood continued to pour out of his chest tubes and various drains.  As is custom for Muslims, we had him face Mecca and called in an interpreter to read from the Koran.  

I thought of these events as I shook the hands of the small group that had assembled for mass.  Peace be with you, I told them.